Caught in Your Web
by Prime627
Summary: Optimus goes out for a patrol, and stumbles across a femme with quite the history. So when he falls in love with her, and she seems to fall in love with him, how will both sides of the war react to this decision?
1. Chapter 1

**Inspired by Prime Father Material by NitroStation. I didn't read a lot, but I'll go back and read if I get stuck. I do think Airachnid and I think Optimus could get through to her. x3 He won't give up on anyone.**

Optimus thought all life was beautiful. That was what made Cybertron like Earth: It was beautiful. The deer, the fawns, the moose, the bats, the cats, the wolves that howled in this forest, the butterflies that were attracted to the red and blue Prime...even the spiders that wove their delicate webs in the trees. He stopped to watch one spider in particular while it spun its web. When a fly flew into the sticky strands, the spider ran to it and wound more of the delicate white threads around it before the fly slowly stopped moving.

"Shame," he whispered. Not being a spider, he didn't quite understand the reason to hurt another living thing. He drank Energon, after all. Energon wasn't alive.

His extended patrols while the other Autobots partied always wound up like this: long walks through a forest like this one.

Only, they didn't include a spider-con stalking him through the forest.

Optimus didn't hear her coming. One moment she wasn't there, and then he was breathing in grass.

"What is a pretty mech like you doing out here all alone? Huh?"

"Airachnid..." He groaned and he squirmed, trying to push her off, but she had his servos tied by his wrists. She flipped him over and webbed them to the ground above his helm. "Release me..."

"No," she smiled. She settled over him, looking down at his chest at his windshields. They were scratched up and cloudy with bugs and Megatron, the gifts he left behind with his claws and pedes. Then she looked at his face.

He looked into her optics and saw sadness. He laid back, knowing she wasn't going to hurt him. She wasn't like that, not at this moment. "If you are not going to release me, you might as well tell me why you have me here."

She lowered her optics again, scratching at the paint. "Believe it or not, I'm still Cybertronian and I do crave socialization from time to time."

"And you feed that urge by webbing your victims to the ground?"

She blinked at him, and she did something Optimus never thought he'd see. Her face crumpled and tears welled up in her optics. She cut him free and was about to run away, but Optimus caught her by the wrist.

"Let go of me!"

"No. Stay here," he whispered. While she struggled, he pulled her to her knees and he settled in front of her. "Stay...I will not hurt you."

She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her servos, looking at him with dim optics. Optimus wondered who she was before she became...Airachnid, killer of all and stone-cold. Was she tender and gentle before? But what changed her and why?

Optimus touched her chin, pulling it up gently with a digit tip. "Shhhh..."

She blinked sadly up at him, then pulled her face out of his grip. "Let me go," she whispered.

"Tell me why you are out of character?"

She pulled away to climb up a tree and she laid down on a branch, out of sight. Optimus sat under the tree as she spoke, telling him about how she was once a beautiful femme before Shockwave offered her a place to stay. He experimented on her, forced her to become what she was. She was put in freakshows, forced to spread her legs for any mech who paid enough credits. When the war started, she saw many of the mechs that used her on the Autobot side, so she went to the Decepticons.

Optimus climbed up the tree and pulled her into a hug. He rubbed her helm, stroked her back. She smiled and rubbed against him, curling up into his arms. He nuzzled her and set her down on the ground.

"You will be okay. You are a strong femmes. Strong femmes survive." He kissed between her optics.

Airachnid grabbed his servo before he could walk away. "Are you coming back?"

"If you would like it, I will return to this spot tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that..."

She smiled, watching him as he backed up, saying _the day after that_ repeatedly until he tripped and fell into a pond. She rushed to his aid, giggling and pulling a lilypad off his helm. Her optics lowered and she smiled. "You are a dork."

"Only when I am helm over heels in love." He smiled and pulled her into his arms, guiding her helm towards his so he could kiss her lips. "Come here tomorrow..." He kissed her again, sitting her on his hips.

"I will," she whispered, holding onto his sides for balance as she purred. She giggled and let him sit up and cradle her to his chest. "I love you," she whispered.

He smiled and kissed her audio. "I love you too."


	2. Chapter 2

They came back to each other every day after that, just as Optimus had promised before falling into a pond. They laid together under the sky, talked about everything, and talked about nothing. Airachnid would bring Energon for them to share. Optimus would bring blankets for them to lay on and under.

Airachnid shifted, cuddling closer to him. "How is it that we have come closer than we should?"

"We are defiers of rules, conquerers of..." He trailed off and struggled for the right words. "Rule...makers?"

She giggled and pushed at him, rolling her optics. "Your eloquence blows me away."

He grunted and rolled over to face her, kissing her forehelm gently. "Mm. Good."

They met like that for days, sharing Energon, memories, and laughs. Optimus would always arrive first, and then Airachnid would step out of the shadows and either tackle him or play the guess-who game where she put her servos over his optics.

But when Optimus wasn't greeted like that one day, he knew there was something wrong. He looked around and frowned, finding a note with an arrow on it pointing deeper into the forest. He followed that, finding note after note until the ground gave away under his pedes. He closed his optics, expecting impact, but he didn't expect sticky strands of white to catch him. He squirmed, trying to get his swords in a position where he could use them.

"Don't," someone whispered.

He knew that voice. He looked up and his spark sank. "Airachnid...?"

She crept along the web, her optics dim and her helm lowered. "Megatron...desires you unharmed."

"You manipulated me! I thought...I thought you had _changed_!"

"I have changed," she insisted. But then she looked at him and her optics shorted out to hide the tears. "I have..."

Megatron was clapping, walking towards them. It occured to Optimus that he was in an Energon mine, with complex tunnels and dead-ends. Escape was useless unless he knew exactly where the exits were, and right now, he didn't.

"Well done, Airachnid," Megatron purred. He climbed up to stand on the web, tickling under her chin. She sighed and looked away. "Oh, don't be like that...remember what I told you? You can have whatever is left of him."

Airachnid nodded a bit, walking towards him. In all their meetings, she had never shown him her beast-mode, and she wasn't wearing it now. Optimus had hope some things hadn't changed.

She knelt by him. The web didn't stick to her or Megatron, but every time Optimus moved, the webs clung to him like a sparkling having a nightmare. He looked up at her, searching for some affection or some mischief in her optics, but they were polished gems, lacking everything but cold beauty. "You said you weren't going to harm him."

"Now, Airachnid, are you really attached to him? Or are you attached to the power a couple of dying bots gave him? You feel it, I know. I feel it, too. He is powerful, he is very attractive for an Autobot, but he is _not what he seems_. He is a murderer, just like me. He killed your family, remember? Killed Mommy and Daddy and Sister and Brother and left little Airachnid all by herself."

What? Airachnid didn't tell him _that_? It couldn't be true! Couldn't...

Airachnid wasn't a Seeker. She didn't have wings to betray her emotions. She had her beast-mode legs, and they went limp against her back. Everything in her went limp and lifeless. Megatron easily batted her aside as if she weighed nothing more than a feather.

Optimus wished he could fight. Femmes should be treated with respect. They weren't toys, weren't playthings, but Airachnid was there, laying on her web like nothing. Optimus gave a roar of frustration and tore through the webbing. Megatron gave a soft yelp and scrabbled off as the tables were suddenly turned.

The Prime grabbed Airachnid and ran through the tunnels. Stupid plan, yes, but at least he had a Decepticon with him, willing to give him directions.

When they made it out, he commed Ratchet for an emergency GroundBridge. Airachnid jumped out of his arms and stood in front of the mine.

Optimus took her servo. "Come with me."

"I can't."

"Because you are a 'Con?"

She whirled on him. "Because I'm a _monster_! Look at what I had just allowed to happen to you! I'm not _trustworthy_ and I never will be." She jerked out of his grip and his reach, shaking her helm as the Bridge opened. "Go."

"But-"

"GO, OPTIMUS!" She shoved his chest. "I don't want you here...not anymore. I'll just kill you, whether I want to or not. Can't you see that?" She stared at him, her shoulders dropping. She usually held her shoulders and her helm high with pride, but now Optimus could see she was a broken femme with broken dreams and a broken spark. Could he fix her? Not if she didn't want his help.

So he pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her mouth. "Very well." He walked to the GroundBridge and looked back, watching as Airachnid cut open a vein and sliced her neck. Megatron ran up in time to see Optimus playing escaping attempted-murderer.

Airachnid collapsed on the ground, whimpering and twitching while the Energon flowed out around her. "He hurt me..."

Megatron nodded. "I can see that. We'll have Knock Out here to patch you up before you can say another word." He needed her alive. Though he didn't like Airachnid, she was as close to an assassin as they could get, having lost two generations of assassins recently.

Knock Out patched her up alright (and even made her look pretty again), but he could do nothing with her broken spark that ached and yearned for Optimus'. She had Clicked with him, and she wondered if the Click was mutual, if the Prime was laying in his berth, thinking of her like she was of him.

But she couldn't be sure, and so she smashed a mirror out of anger and laid back down in her berth.

 **ooo**

Optimus made sure every glass bottle he had stolen from Ratchet wasn't what he would need in the next five minutes. Ratchet had nothing to worry about. When the medic came back out, looking for the beakers and test tubes, he saw the Prime trembling in frustration, his cannon hot and ready to fire, the glass objects unharmed except a little heated from the blasts that missed them by centimeters.

"Centimeters aren't bad," Ratchet said, shaking a beaker cool. The Prime turned his helm away. "Thanks for not destroying my stuff. I needed these."

Optimus flinched when he touched his shoulder and he slowly looked at him.

"Get over it, Prime. Whatever it is that's bothering you, it's not worth your time." He patted his arm and left the Prime. "And don't forget to come in! It's supposed to rain and I don't want to find you out here when it does."

Ratchet was pleased to hear the Prime following him inside. He directed the mech to lay down on a medberth, and he watched his friend stare up at the ceiling before finally succumbing to sleep. Then the medic brushed the Prime's helm and left him to recharge in peace.


End file.
